Learn your camera. Read the manual. Experiment with the features you're unfamiliar with to see what they do.

Carry extra batteries! These work great in my Nikon 3100.

Keep your camera with you and look for opportunities to capture fleeting moments.

When traveling collect brochures, ticket stubs, etc and mark them with the date you were there. Use a post-it if you don't want to write on the actual brochure. You can store these together in a small gift shop bag until you get home. They'll help you document your trip.

Tell a story by taking a series of photos of a trip, event or place.

When visiting parks and historical sites take pictures of the signs for the location. They're most useful for identifying the places you visited.

Look for the unusual and unique. They make great photos.

When traveling photograph the unique, local cuisine. Also get shots of the restaurant and menu. Photograph the reactions of the people you're with to the new foods you're trying.

Use a coffee filter, folded in half for a light diffuser by holding or fastening it over the flash. Gives the light a warm glow instead of being harsh.

When shooting people tell everyone to look at the same place, such as the top of your head, so everyone will have the same eye line. Tell them to not look directly into the lens.

Use your redeye setting on animals so as to not alarm them. (You'll still get the red eye effect because their eyes are different, but they won't bolt during the shot.)

Take your time and line up your shot. Haste makes waste.

Candid shots of people and animals are more interesting than posed shots.

Place your people in the foreground with the site or scenery in the background next to them. If you stand them right next to the attraction then move back to get it all in the person will be too small to recognize.

Add interest and dimension by framing your subject with something in the foreground.

Avoid mid-day shots when the shadows are short and uninteresting.

Watch the cloud movement, sometimes they're just seconds away from a better shot. Be patient.

If your shot contains strong vertical or horizontal lines i.e. door frames, horizon, etc line them up with the frame of your shot.

If you want to make something look strange, creepy or weird then use a "Dutch angle" where you purposely rotate the camera so the frame of the photo does not line up with the horizontal and vertical elements of the subject.